It would be nice to have a conversation with someone of an opposing viewpoint without insults.

Yes. I suggest the next time you jump into a thread, you not start out with one.

Do you really need proof that corporations sacrifice the environment in order to make more money?

I reject your semantics as hyperbolic. Nobody wants to “sacrifice” anything. That, and verbiage such as “destroy the planet” are intentionally incendiary and are not accurate characterizations of corporate intent.

Corporations obviously put environmental concerns secondary to profits. That is what they are for, after all; they are profit machines. Milton Friedman pointed out this in Capitalism and Freedom, and pointed out that there is no free-market control that would incent a corporation to either not pollute or clean up after themselves. Hence, regulations which even libertarians accept under the classification of “neighborhood effects”.

That’s a far cry from their INTENT being to “destroy the planet.” Trust me, nobody’s INTENTION is to destroy anything. You may see it as a byproduct of their actions, and bemoan the fact that they pay too little attention to it. That’s a fair observation. But if you impute INTENT to their actions, you demonize the people who pay the bills for all the government you want to have. That doesn’t make any sense.

On occasion, liberals ought to remember that without Exxon, Conoco, BP, Shell, WalMart, Caterpillar, Boeing…..and all those nasty polluting “old economy” companies, there’d be no Social Security, no Medicare, no ACA, no welfare….and 40% unemployment. The new economy companies don’t pay enough or employ enough to keep Oregon solvent.

Old Rich dudes who own many of these companies do not care about climate change because they will not suffer from it.

Another statement of intent. See above.

Liberals don’t exist because they love regulation for regulation’s sake. Government is supposed to represent US. It is supposed to protect us from those that would do us harm. It has already been shown that companies will do whatever is cheapest, and that often is at the expense of the environment.

Nobody to my knowledge has a problem with environmental regulations that are reasonably matched against their (a) cost and the (b) potential damage they seek to avert. Determining the balance between those two competing priorities is a political debate that reasonable people can engage in.

However, when you demonize your debate opponents as wanting to “destroy the planet”, reasonable debate ends. Instead of listening to you, your opponents push away from the table and ignore you. And you did it to yourself.

You want reasonable solutions to our environmental challenges? Figure out some everyone likes.